The Girl On The Airplane

by Anusha Gupta (India)

A leap into the unknown India

A girl shuffles with her ring as she sits and observes the fairly vacant airplane. As the passengers start buzzing inside, an elderly man, conspicuously hefty, arrives and gestures the girl to scoot inside. Confused, the girl utters, ‘this is my seat…22-D...’ ‘Yeah, mine is 22-E but I can’t sit there.... It-- it gets a bit uncomfortable. Would you…’ ‘Oh!’ As she begins to slide giving way to him, she can sense that he's drunk. ‘But if the other person comes, I want my seat back.’ ‘Sure.’ Lying on the window seat now, she contemplates whether she should have yielded or not. The man tries to initiate a conversation with her to which she nods in reluctant politeness. However, irked by the intermittent prods, she fastens her seat belt and gazes out of the window to avoid any eye contact. The darkness of night has consumed all of the land and all of the sea alike, so that the windows of skyscrapers and stars appear like dulled orbs, there, but sparse and distant. The flight takes off. The air hosts brush against the man each time they perambulate and he shifts to the seat next to her, swift and smooth. Being unable to agree or disagree, she puts on her earphones while the man instantly dozes off. After a few seconds, she also loses consciousness. She is awakened to the feeling of a certain heaviness on her shoulder, realizing that the head of the man is swinging upon her. She tries to nudge him, ‘excuse me?’ He unconsciously shifts, ‘oh! Yes, sorry…’ and the girl tries to get back to sleep, sticking herself to the window, helplessly reaching out for the pitch blackness, yearning to dissolve into it completely, alas! Only if the glass let her. A while later, he leans in, again. It was as if everything paused. In a hazy moment of desperation, she shoves the man away. And suddenly, the blurriness snaps unto reality. Everything resumes and she is back with his weight thrusting on her. She again calls out, curtly this time, ‘excuse me!’ jerking him up from snoring. ‘Please shift!’ ‘Oh, I am sorry.’ He scoots only slightly and goes back to sleep again. In a fit of restlessness and immediacy, she presses the bell and waits in vexation. The air hostess approaches. ‘How can I help you, ma'am?’ The man yawns and yanks into consciousness. Unaware, he asks, ‘is there any problem?’ The air hostess looks at the girl. ‘...N-- no…no-- sorry to bother you.’ ‘Okay, ma'am!’ As the air-hostess leaves, he dozes off again, pinioning her. Cringing, on the verge of crying, she urgently grabs the seat belt. An array of hazy moments throngs her mind as the vicinity freezes in time, again. She unbuckles the belt, gets up in exasperation and rushes towards the air hostess. ‘Oh, but he's only sleeping, ma'am.’/ ‘But-- He's… onto me.’/ ‘He's a valued customer.’/ ‘But--.’/ ‘Maybe you’re seeing too much into it.’ And the standstill breaks! The girl is still holding onto the buckle firmly. As the plane lands, the girl stares in revulsion, at the man’s indifference. Slowly, she lets go of the grip, almost baffled. The speaker erupts, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have safely landed at the Mumbai Airport. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us…’ The man innocently wakes up and disappears amidst the queue, unnoticed. And there the girl on the airplane sits, blank, still, stranded at the passage of events. And I stared, as in another hazy moment, she sighs, and presses hard through the skull, the tips of her fingernails, and lets out a muffled expression of repugnance and frustration. Little did I know that my own head had been sinking under the piercing jabs of my own fingers.